Former Apple Evangelist Kawasaki Pimps New iPhone Apps

Former Apple evangelist and professional self promoter Guy Kawasaki spent Friday morning at Macworld Expo helping developers pimp their software. While he was at it, he managed to deliver some obligatory jabs to Microsoft and Google.

“Back then the Mac division was the largest collection of egomaniacs,” said Kawasaki, reflecting on his past job evangelizing the Mac platform. “But that record has been broken by Google.”

From 1983 to 1987, Kawasaki was Apple’s Mac evangelist, who reached out to software developers to convince them to develop applications for the Macintosh back when the platform had a diminutive install base. To attract developers to the platform, he’d often publicize hot software to show off the capabilities of the Mac.

Reviving his old role as a software promoter, Kawasaki on Friday featured app demonstrations by several developers. The key appearances were Twitter creator Jack Dorsey (below), former Apple engineer Bill Atkinson and Microsoft Bing manager Florian Voss.

Dorsey’s new startup Square revolves around a platform that enables anyone to perform a credit card transaction. The Square magnetic stripe reader plugs into any computer or phone with a 3.5-mm headphone jack, and the Square software transmits payments to Square’s database, which eventually wires the money to a bank account.

“Everybody becomes a merchant,” Dorsey said.

The credit card reader could come useful for people selling items on Craigslist or for charities asking for donations. Both the app and the accessory will be free; the Square system charges merchants fees depending on the cards used. (See Mat Honan’s review of Square published earlier this week.)

Microsoft’s Voss showed off the new Bing app for iPhone, which enables users to perform Bing searches with voice commands. Kawasaki complimented the Bing app’s beauty, but not without slipping in a Microsoft diss.

Apple veteran Atkinson demoed his $5 app PhotoCard, which allows users to create postcards using their own images or Atkinson’s photographs. You’d use the app to design the postcard and send off the request to a local print shop, which will physically produce the postcard and mail it out to your recipient through the U.S. postal service. You’d pay for prints inside the app with credits purchased through PayPal.